You're Not Alone
by Ghost501
Summary: The original family trio, Megaman, Roll, and Protoman. After they all became navis, Protoman became an Ace Official created by Chaud and Megaman became a human soul in the coding of a net navi...and Roll is just a navi? There isn't much background info about the pink companion, who in the classic series was the blue bomber's sister, until now.
1. Chapter 1

Hey All! It's Ghost501, but I guess you already knew that if you looked up in the author's box...heh. Anyway, I am officially kicking off the MegaMan Series. It's official name will be released at the end of the fic. Special thanks to Netto-Hybra(or Gavzilla) for beta-ing both Project 7 and this story. I have to admit, his advice affected the plot of this series so much that I have to name a co-author. He's a really good idea guy to bounce plot ideas back and forth with. The link to his profile is in my Profile under projects. So without further delay, here you go! Next update will be this Friday!

* * *

"Hey Megaman! Megaman! Hey, Hub!" a voice interrupted the blue navi's thoughts and he snapped his head up to look at his operator.

"Oh, sorry Lan. I was just thinking." Megaman said sheepishly.

"You seem to be doing that a lot nowadays. You okay?" Lan pointed out.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"

"I don't know. I'm not the one in your head."

"Thank heaven for that."

"What's that supposed to mean!?"

"That you in my head would drive me insane."

"Why you?!" It then occurred to Lan that his brother was just joking with him.

Megaman started rolling on the floor of homepage crying his eyes out. It was always funny for him to see Lan overreact to things. Which reminded him, he had to remind Mayl that they were a go for that plan. He stopped laughing and turned to his brother, who had also started laughing at his quick temper.

"Hey Lan, I just remembered. Aren't you supposed to be getting ready for that date with Mayl tonight?" Megaman asked and was forced to bite his lip in his attempt to stop his laughter when he saw his brother freak out and quickly run for the bathroom. Mayl wouldn't be happy if he was late for their fourth date. Megaman took the opportunity to escape into the cyber world and head over to Mayl's PC.

* * *

Roll sat around in her homepage. Mayl was stilling going through outfits and she was beginning to get bored of watching her operator's antics. It wasn't like Lan would particularly care what she wore; but to the love-struck Mayl, there was no easy way of telling her that. So, she entertained her by letting her run around her room in a frantic rush. But then again, what else could you do as a navi but care for your operator?

Roll soon began to fade the world out as she thought about her life. Surprisingly, she found herself thinking about her creation. She never really remembered waking up during her programing. When she talked to several other navis, including Protoman, Gutsman, and Glyde, each navi told her that they were woken up multiple times during the course of their programing. Normally, the programmer did this to make sure that the navi was even running correctly. But she never did wake up during her programing; at least if she did, she didn't remember. Roll sighed to herself.

She was happy being Mayl's navi, but sometimes she wondered if she was truly happy. Sure she would wake up every day and be incredible joyful that she the world hadn't ended and that everything was still running smoothly in this happy little world. But sometimes she wondered if her feelings were truly genuine. After all, she was a navi.

All navis were given simulated emotion programs so that they were better able to learn from their operators. They could copy them more easily if they understood just what they were feeling. But in the end, her emotions and feelings were just some program telling her this was how she should feel. Weren't they?

Her thoughts then turned to Megaman. The only navi who had once been human. The only navi who actually understood what it was like to have real feelings. Everyone else in the cyber world was just playing along. Roll sighed, leave it to her to fall in love with him.

In a sense, she was envious of Mega. He was able to do what she couldn't. He would actually know what having feelings were really about. Even if he was only a mere baby when he died, he still knew what it was like to have feelings.

But some days, Roll could swear that something was wrong with her. She remembered a few occasions where this random navi had been trying to impress her. She eventually lost her cool and ended up smacking the navi several times with her energy ribbons. She hadn't meant to boil over and hit him, but he was just so annoying. Then there was that other time when someone had made a joke at her expense. She could feel the anger rising as she remembered that day.

* * *

"_And who are you supposed to be?"_ _a scientist said. He and several others of his fellow scholars were observing the latest custom built navi. Today was her last day of testing._

"_I'm Roll. " the pink navi said politely._

"_Cute name. But in the end of the day, cute names will only get you so far. Perhaps, we should just assign her to a school teacher. It's boring enough for our little friend here. Plus, she won't be any trouble for those who will have to deal with her. You think children still like the color pink. I hear it's a cursed color in some cultures." another scientist asked._

"_She's as good as cursed with this set up. Look at her busting capabilities. She's pathetic" One man said._

_Roll winced as the words came out of their mouths. It hurt. They hurt. Why would they talk about her so cruel, especially in front of her! She balled her fists, determined not to cry. But she could feel her eyes betraying her, as little droplets of cyber water were formed in the corner of her eyes._

'Stay strong, Roll. They're just being mean. Don't let them see you cry.'_ She thought._

"_Don't underestimate her." a woman said. Roll was thankful that she at least had someone on her side. At least this one didn't seem to destroy what little confidence she had. It wasn't easy being brought before a panel and judged to see whether or not you were fit to serve the Net Society._

"_Dr. Itami, this navi is worthless in a fight. All she has is slow firing arrow."_

"_I'm fast." Roll blurted. She just wanted to pass this last then. Maybe then she would be assigned to a kind operator. She would take anyone over these scientists. For the last couple of days, they had done nothing but ridicule her behind her back. She was weak in their eyes. Roll just wanted to but this whole situation behind her._

"_Yes, her speed attribute is remarkable high. But it would do her no good if she can't fight. And it's obvious she can't. Seriosuly, this navi wouldn't even be able to protect herself form a Mettuar. I'd say we're better off scrapping her and rebuild her from scratch." he sneered back. He had never been a fan of Dr. Itami's navi. They were overly emotional and never really functional as virus busters. Boy, where she gone wrong with this one. This pink navi was the worst of the bunch!_

_Roll felt her systems freeze. No, this couldn't be happening. Oh, why did hse have to ruin everything? The pink navi tried to open her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She didn't want to make things worse for herself._

"_She's only somewhat better than a normal navi yes and only that by a slim margin. The only thing she could do is roll around and hope that her opponents think she's crazy and leave her alone." The other scientists began to snicker as Dr. Itami stood there with a neutral look on her face._

_Roll felt the tears stream down her cheeks. They were making fun of her, as if they didn't do that enough to her over the past couple of days. Ever since she was presented to the panel, they had asked her to reintroduce herself several times even though she was certain they knew her name by know. They had done nothing but ridicule her and pull at her heart strings. She heard one of them remark that she was nothing more than a cute face._

"No operator would ever want this one." _The thought had been stuck in her head ever since one of them had uttered it. Now they were talking about deleting her and starting from scratch. She stared down at her hands. No, she liked herself. She didn't want to change. She had her own identity. She remembered meeting several other navis during the course of her testing._

_All they cared about was fulfilling their jobs. But what about their need? What about their emotions? Whenever Roll asked, the navis merely responded that whatever made their operators happy, made them happy. But Roll wasn't happy. She was crushed, demolished, and demoralized. She knew that they wanted her to be a normal custom navi. They wanted to be great at virus busting and look tough. But she just couldn't do that. Why couldn't they just understand that?_

_Roll closed her eyes, trying to make the tears stop. But they just continued to fall as the sound of laughter reverberated in her head. She needed to get out. She just wanted to get out. All of a sudden, she felt something boil inside of her. Anger. She had never felt it so strong. But these attacks. That's it! They were attacking her! Well, she had had enough attacks for one lifetime._

"_SHUT UP! STOP MAKING FUN OF ME!" she yelled. It wasn't for another second that she actually realized that she had actually said the words that she tought she merely spoke in her head._

_Dr. Itami walked up to the console and put Roll into a pink PET, "I think that's enough for today, gentlemen."_

* * *

Roll shook her head. She thought she had buried that along with every other bit of her memory of that time. She hated that memory. Like everything else from before she met Mayl, she had buried the memory. She had to admit that she no longer recollected much from those times, but those she did remember haunted her to this day. As Roll looked at her hands, she could have sworn that she saw them light up. But whatever had happened for that split second stopped. Roll was soon brought out of her trance by Mayl's yelling.

"ROLL!" the red haired girl yelled as her navi snapped her head so fast that she almost fell down.

"About time! You've been ignoring me for three minutes straight! You okay?" her operator said concerned.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm sorry, Mayl. I was just thinking."

"Okay, well. I'm going to finish getting ready for tonight. You want me to jack you into the Net?"

"Um..sure. But I'll probably just walk around the homepage."

"Okay. You sure you're okay?"

Roll nodded her head, "Yeah. I just need to walk around for a bit. Clear my head."

Mayl said okay and jacked Roll into the PC.


	2. Chapter 2

A few minutes later, Megaman had showed up in her PC.

"Hey Mega!"

"Hey Roll!"

"Come to talk to Mayl or me?"

"Mayl, I was going to tell her that her window is right after their date. Lan won't suspect a thing. Come to think about it, I should make sure he doesn't wear any really nice shirts…it would suck if he got them ruined."

"Alright, well I'll let her know."

"Cool," he said as he turned to leave. Normally he would have stayed to chat, but he needed to get back before Lan suspected anything.

Lan had played a prank on Mayl earlier in the month and had dropped a couple water balloons on her; but it had been humid and her hair had frizzed…badly. So, she had been waiting for her chance to get back at him. Somehow, she had gotten Megaman involved—how she did, Roll didn't know. But she was going to find out, especially since he seemed so adamant about joining this crusade originally.

"Hey, Mega?"

"Yeah, Roll?"

"How did Mayl get you to join her in pranking Lan?"

She figured Mayl was blackmailing him when she saw his checks turn red, "Um, she's convincing?"

"Mega," Roll walked closer to the blue navi, "Is Mayl blackmailing you?"

"No. Not at all." He said, trying his best to sound convincing. But Roll knew him like a closed book she had read a thousand times.

"You're a terrible liar, Megaman. Now, tell me the truth."

She saw Mega's eyes darting around the room. He was trying to escape. She pulled up a menu and pressed in a couple codes. The link to her homepage to the Net went dark. Now, he couldn't get out unless Lan jacked him out.

"Roll…" Megaman said, but his voice came out weak as the pink navi advanced even closer to him.

"Mega, what is Mayl blackmailing you with?" she said, beginning to get annoyed. She was his best friend. What could possibly be that bad that Mayl could blackmail him with and he couldn't tell her what it was?

"I'm not telling." Megaman said, his voice regaining some of its strength.

"Why not?" she said, her voice rising.

"Because you wouldn't understand."

"What could I not understand?"

"Just trust me on this. You won't get it. At all."

"What wouldn't I get?! Just what is so profound that I'm just too dumb to get!"

"Look, it's something that no one but me underst…"

"WHAT IS IT, HUB HIKARI? HUH?! JUST WHAT IS IT?" Roll yelled. It occurred to her that this was the first time she had even been so mad at Megaman before in her life. She was beginning to feel a little woozy. Everything had its limits. Roll's emotion program had been under constant stress for the past week after she had been running for days straight without time to rest—Mayl's schoolwork and the random navi that kept on trying to ask her out saw to that. But she stood strong, determined not to let her weakness show.

"YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT IS!? FINE! IT WAS A NOTE THAT I WROTE ABOUT YOU! I GUESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I WROTE THAT TOO?!" Megaman yelled, quite offended at this rate that he couldn't just be left alone.

"YEAH, I WOULD! AFTER ALL, I NEVER PEGGED YOU TO BE THE ONE TO TALK ABOUT PEOPLE BEHIND THEIR BACKS!" Roll put her face right up to Megaman's. If it had been a normally situation, but navis would have been embarrassed at their close proximity. However, the high tension made them momentarily forget their crushes on one another.

"I WROTE IT BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!"

She saw Mega's face turn from annoyed anger to immediate shock in a few seconds. He took a step back and breathed, realizing that he had no choice but to explain, "Mayl saw a note that I had left on Lan's PET. It doesn't say much. It doesn't even say I love you on it. But it had your name on it and she said she would tell you about it if I didn't help. I'm sure she only caught a glimpse at it, but I guess I gave away how important it was when I reacted after she found it. And knowing you, I guessed that you wouldn't stop until you saw the note for yourself.

"What did it say?" she asked softly, trying to understand the whole situation.

"It said that you would never love me."

"Wha…Mega, I…"

"No, don't even say it. Even if you think that you're in love with me, you're not. You're programmed to say that. I know you've seen Mayl after she comes back from a date with Lan. You've seen how to act when someone tells you I love you.

"I don't want that. But I know that what I want will never happen. Your emotions, all of them, are simulated. You don't know what it's like to love. You only have a program telling you how it is supposed to feel."

Roll stood there, quiet as a mouse. She could feel an inner turmoil within herself. How dare he. How could he be so mean?! She loved him and this was all she got in return. She didn't even get a chance to tell him. He just shut her down. He was no better than those scientists. All this time, her best friend—her crush—believed that she was no more than some stupid program incapable of thinking and loving by her own will!. How could he do this to her?! She was beginning to feel hot, but she didn't care.

"Is that all you think of me?"

"What?"

"Am I just a program to you? Am I really that incapable to you? That I can never love you because I have a program that tells me what to do." Roll could feel the wooziness take hold. But as she pushed through it, she could feel the anger inside her consume her.

"Roll, I think you're smoking." Megaman said.

Roll angrily brought back up the menu and reactivated the link. She didn't care if she was on fire or not. All she could focus on was the hurt she felt. She had never felt so cut up in her life. But, why did this feel so real? She knew what her emotions normally felt like. It would be a pause for a millisecond and then bam, she would know how to react. But even then, something about them seemed forced...except when it came to the subject of Megaman. Shoot, even when she saw Mayl hurt, she felt something different. She could only describe does moments as a scaled down version of what she was feeling right now.

Everything was flying so fast. Her emotions were going crazy. It was so irrational. She wasn't supposed to feel this kind of pain, was she? If she was calm, she would have realized that her emotion program was beginning to fail due to the stress of it all; she would also realize that if she continued, soon she wouldn't have any emotions left to show. But her anger and hurt consumed her. She didn't care if the whole world exploded right now. Megaman had hurt her more than anything she had ever been through before in her whole life. He assumed that she could never love. All because she was a stupid net navi.

Had he thought this all this time? Was she nothing but just a stupid program you make a few lines of code for and rejoice because she did what she was programmed to do?!

"Roll, you need to calm down. I think you're burning out one of your programs!"

Roll turned her back to the blue navi. The smoke was beginning to not only come off her shoulders now, but her whole body seemed to be steaming. Roll felt tears brimming in her eyes. No, she couldn't cry in front of him. He didn't deserve to see her break. Roll felt something snap inside of her. But she never lost her anger. She never lost her hurt, "Get out…"

"Roll…"

"I SAID GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOMEPAGE YOU TWISTED JERK!" Roll growled. All of a sudden, she collapsed to the ground and braced herself with her hands. Immediately, she knew that Mega was right. She should have been worried. Actually, she should have been nothing. Roll was almost certain that it was her emotion program that had just burned out. And with that gone, she shouldn't be able to feel anything. But she did. She couldn't stop her tears from coming as she cried.

Among her own sobs, she heard Megaman yell out to Mayl, who had just stepped out of the bathroom. As Roll looked at her hands, she realized that the lights had come back. When Megaman put his hand on her shoulder, she did her best to shrug him off. She didn't want to look at him.

"Roll, now is not the time. Look at your hands! You're coming apart!" Megaman said worried. Her body suit was beginning to glow. The lights that were appearing on her reminded Megaman of BugStyle, a style he hadn't seen since he and Lan had defeated Alpha.

"GET AWAY FROM ME! Why the hell do you care about a program?! I'm no better than a Mr. Program to you aren't I?! Just data and a cute face right?!" she snarled gritting her teeth.

"ROLL!" she heard Mayl scream as she arrived at the PC.

Roll merely turned from her and tried to get back up to her feet. She needed to leave. She couldn't take feeling this hurt. She needed to get out and get away from everyone. But Megaman kept her from leaving.

"Roll…your emotions program. How did you burn it out?" Mayl asked, a look of shock on her face.

"She burned it out?" Megaman asked.

"At least that's what my PET says. It's reporting a complete failure."

"Roll." Megaman said, expecting her to be devoid of feelings. But instead, he was met with a tearful angry look. Something told Megaman that she was only one step away from hitting me.

"I told you to get off of me. I told you to get out. DO SOMETHING RIGHT!"

"Roll?" Mayl asked. She had never seen her navi so destroyed and hurt before in all ten years of them being partners.

"And you! How could just take advantage of Megaman? You know better than that, Mayl!" Roll yelled, though she was significantly softer with her operator than she was with the blue navi.

The red-haired girl look shocked as her navi reprimanded her. She had felt bad for putting Megaman in a bind. But that note couldn't have been that important, could it?

"Roll. Here, let me…"

Megaman didn't get a chance to speak. Roll's eyes flashed dangerously as he saw him come closer. Before he touched her shoulder, Roll smacked him with her energy ribbons, or better known as her Roll Flash attack. The blue bomber fell down on his butt and looked at the pink navi. Her eyes were filled with even more tears. She looked completely demoralized. But, how could she? Her emotions program had burned out. She shouldn't be able to feel any kind of emotion.

Roll was exhausted. She couldn't take it anymore. She just wanted everything to go back to before she asked that question. She would have been much better off living in her fantasy world where she believed that Megaman and her actually had a future together, "Please Mega…just leave…just leave me alone…"

Roll tried to walk towards her own link to the net, but her knees buckled. She fainted before she hit the ground.

* * *

Update: Monday

Oh boy...here comes a long author's note:

Also, credit where credit is due. Most of this plot was inspired by Gavzilla (formerly known as Netto-Hybra) after talking with him for a while [reason he's getting so many shout outs from me recently is because he's been a huge help to me with this series. As I said before, He is a co-author to this series]. Originally, the prompt was that since navi's emotions are run by a program, they couldn't really love. What happens next...well only two people know that (can you guess who?)

That being said you guys have two style (not style changes) that you can have for Project 7:

1) You can have just like this. Story and that's all.

2) You can have a director's cut. Gavzilla and I will simply put our notes at the bottom of each page.

Let us know by reviews or PMs.

Also, thanks to Alisi Thorndyke for joining the Community (get to it from my profile!)! We have 4 now! u/403190/Alisi-Thorndyke

Since I' m such a promoter of Megaman BN and (just because I don't write in the anime or manga universe doesn't mean I don't get a kick out of the show, NT Warrior was a huge part of my childhood.) I have to put up stuff when I see it. Here is an excellent abridged series made by a group on YouTube. I highly suggest you all check it out.

watch?v=6Ebp_u9Zo9A (put in front of everything)

In other news, if a certain Ghost was to...I don't know...do a Let's Play sometimes during the month of December/January (I know late, but I don't have axess (See what I did there) to my Gamecube right now until then) of a Battle Network game which one would you want? I have copies of the BN 4 and BN 6 cartridges, so it'll be down to those two. PM or review works nicely. See ya on Monday!


	3. Chapter 3

Dr. Hikari hadn't been expecting his son and his girlfriend to charge into his office this evening. In fact, he had planned to leave early today. But once he saw the state of Roll's systems, he canceled those plans and went straight back to work.

"Well, this is strange indeed." The doctor said as he typed in a few more commands.

"What's wrong with Roll?" Lan asked. Mayl was so sick with worry that she wasn't doing much other than staring at her navi through the computer screen. The Bug Style appearance had progressed from Roll's hands and throughout her whole body.

"Well as you all can tell, Roll has a bug within her systems. But she's not equipped with a Navi Customizer, so the problem lies within her core systems."

"So, what does that mean?" Megaman asked quietly. He had been feeling guilty since he knew he was the one that triggered whatever had happened to his love.

"Well, this is the interesting part. For the most part, her programming seems to be in top condition. The only thing that's wrong is her emotion program. You said that she was still upset after the program had burned out?"

"Yes, very upset…" Mayl said, her voice was broken. When Roll had passed out, she had immediately sent Roll into her PET, grabbed Lan, and demanded that he take her to see his father to fix her.

"That's another shocking bit. As you know, the emotion simulation program is supposed to allow a navi to feel emotions like us humans. But, they truly don't know how to deal with them until they see how their operators deal with it. Without that program, they don't know how to show emotions.

"That's how they change from being a navi to being a computer program. Without their synthesized feelings, they can't feel anything. So, when Roll's programing burned out, she should have become very blank. She shouldn't have been mad. She should have reverted into being just a program; but instead, from your story, she seemed to be acting more human than ever. It's very strange." The doctor said.

Megaman stared at his friend as her core programming was being scanned. He was the cause of all this. He was sorry for what he said. He had no right to call her a program. He knew he should've just deleted that note the second he wrote it.

Mayl was feeling even worse than Megaman if that was even possible. She had been responsible for this. She had upset Roll by blackmailing Megaman. All for the sake of getting back at Lan for frizzy hair. "I'm sorry, Roll. You don't deserve a selfish operator like me."

Lan turned to the red haired girl as fresh tears sprung to her eyes, "Mayl, you're the best operator for her."

"No, I'm not! I allow so many things to happen to her. I'm weak. I can't even net battle properly. I'm just useless."

"No, you're not. I've never seen an operator who cares more about her navi than you. Whenever, Roll is out longer than a minute more than she should, you get worried and try to find her. When you can't find her, you reach out to your friends to find her just so you know that she's safe. You're the best person to be Roll's operator. The only way you can fail Roll is if you give up on her now. You have to believe that she is strong enough to pull through this." Lan said staring into her brown eyes.

Mayl brought her hands up to dry her eyes, "You're right. Thank you, Lan."

* * *

After Dr. Hikari removed Roll's emotion program, the coding anyway, from her systems, her appearance to return back to normal. But the doctor was still convinced that the program burned out because of something in Roll's systems. After an hour later going through Roll's data, Dr. Hikari had begun to notice something strange in her code. It seemed as if she was still awake. Some part of her was still actively trying to figure out what was wrong. As the doctor took a closer look, he realized something very familiar about this pattern.

Roll was somehow still emitting a signal of fear. She was scared! As the creator of the emotions program, he knew firsthand what that code looked like. But as he typed in a few more commands, he froze. This strange form of his code was tied directly into her central programming. If he tried to edit it at all, he would risk deleting her. Dr. Hikari quickly made a note of this and then made an email addressed to Dr. Itami.

* * *

Age had been good to the forty six year old scientist, Dr. Itami. She retained much of her youth from her early days and had not put on the dreaded middle age weight. The doctor walked up to the door and it opened for her. It had been a long time since she worked at SciLab. She was now a professor at Cyber City College, subject: navi customization and development.

She hadn't seen Dr. Hikari in years. Actually, after Roll had been developed, she had left SciLab in order to become a teacher. The way how those _scientists_ criticized Roll had made her sick and unable to work there. They all assumed that navis were just data. But navis were more than just computer programs. She just knew it.

As she entered the room, she was shocked by the scene in front of her. It wasn't seeing the doctor that did it; but what surprised her, was seeing the doctor's young Lan and a familiar red haired girl sleeping together. Dr. Itami stared hard at the girl. She had known her from somewhere, but where?

Then Dr. Hikari smiled at her and tapped the two awake. Their eyes fluttered open and the girl looked at her for a split second before smiling widely.

"Mrs. Amaya!" the red haired girl yelled as she ran towards her and gave her a hug. Now she remembered her. She could never forget those brown eyes.

"Mayl!" the doctor said returning the embrace, "It's so good to see you again!"

"Yes, it is," Mayl said looking up into the blue eyes of the doctor. She then turned to see Lan looking confused at her, "Oh, I'm sorry, Lan. This is Mrs. Amaya. She's a family friend. She's also the one who first showed me how to play the piano."

"Oh!" Lan said, suddenly remembering the woman. She had moved to somewhere a long time ago, but Lan couldn't remember where. Mayl did say that she would send emails to her occasionally though.

"Yes, it's very good to see you again to Lan. And Dr. Hikari. Still enveloped in SciLab I see."

"Yes, it helps keeps me busy."

"So, not that I don't enjoy the reunion, but why did you email me? You said that it was important that I come down here immediately."

"Yes, I needed you're help with something."

"What is that?"

Dr. Hikari hit a button which showed a screen showing a blue navi that she knew as . However, Hub looked nervous about something. The doctor followed the path of his eyes and saw…

"Roll!" the doctor exclaimed, "Is she okay?"

"For the most part, but her emotion program burned out unexpectedly today."

"Burned out? Was she stressed?"

"That's what I had originally thought. But then a thought struck me after I started to examine her. I remembered when we first did the test on navis. Their emotions programing too burned out on them because they got too emotional, so we decided to put in a subroutine into the code. Pretty much, the routine would cause an overly emotional navi to automatically go into sleep mode, thus saving the program from being too stressed.

"But as I looked through the pieces of Roll's, I realized that that subroutine had been taken out of her code. Immediately, I thought it was odd that it would be removed even though Roll was thoroughly checked for errors, especially by you. And I know how much you hate errors.

"There's another problem. Even without her emotions program, she's still afraid. When I tried to look into it, I realized that a form of the code is integrated into her core. I hate to admit it, but I don't know how to get it to stop without deleting her."

"No!" Mayl gasped. She couldn't lose Roll. She had been her first "female" friend she had ever had. To lose Roll, would be like Lan refusing to net battle. It just didn't happen!

* * *

_A five year old Mayl quickly ran home on her way back from school. She had been so excited for this day all week. She hadn't even realized that she had left Lan and Dex back at the school in her dust. _

_ As she entered her home, she quickly took off her shoes and rushed in. There was no need to make a mess for herself to clean up later. Her mother had died a few days after she was born and her father was away due to business a lot. Sometimes, she would wonder if her father even lived in her home. She had dealt with nothing but loneliness for so many years. Until now._

_ Her father promised her that he would give her a custom navi for her fifth birthday; and today was that day. She quickly ran upstairs and plugged her PET into her computer. She pressed in a few commands and waited. Her father had just sent her the data disc this morning, but she hadn't had the time to run it before she left the house._

_ Mayl bounced in her small seat as the loading bar went slowly across her terminal's screen. She had never been so excited in her life. Finally, she would have a friend other than Lan and Dex to talk to. Mayl hoped that she would get a girl navi; it would be nice to finally have someone to talk to about girl stuff with._

_ Finally, the PET rang, signaling that the program upload was complete. As the machine restarted, Mayl sat in agonizing silence. _

'_Please let it be a girl. Please let it be a girl,' She thought over and over again._

_The PET finally booted back up. When Mayl got a good look at her navi, she almost fell out of her seat. She was asleep! The navi was a pink humanoid female with two ribbon-like things on her helmet. On her chest was a symbol with that of a heart on it. The navi then looked up, yawned, and blinked her eyes a couple times._

"_Is it morning already?" she asked._

"_HI!" Mayl blurted out._

"_WAAA! Who are you?!"_

"_I'm Mayl. You're NetOp."_

"_My NetOp?"_

"_Yeah! Oh, this is so great! I finally have my own net navi! My own friend!" the little girl said hugging the PET tightly._

_The navi giggled, "You're sure excited to see me."_

"_Of course I am! Why would I be?! We're going to be best friends, I can just tell! So, what's your name?"_

"_I'm Roll."_

* * *

Mayl gripped the small personal handheld in her hands. She couldn't lose her. She just couldn't. Mayl hadn't noticed the tears running down her cheeks until Mrs. Itumi touched her shoulder with one hand and wiped them off with the other.

"It's okay, Mayl. I won't let anything happen to her."

"No offense Mrs. Amaya, but what can you do to save her? Dr. Hikari is one of the top scientists in navi development and even he can't figure it out."

"Mayl," Dr. Hikari laughed, "If anything, Dr. Itumi is the perfect candidate to save Roll. Who do you think created her?"

"Huh?" Lan could feel the hamster inside his head stop running as the thought sank in.

"Yes, Dr. Amaya Itami is Roll's creator."

* * *

Update: Friday

Also, please go weigh in on the poll on my profile if you want us to include a director's cut during Project 7 (it will close on Wednesday night). Did I mention that it's also coming out Friday after the release of the last chapter of this story? I didn't. Oh, well now I have.

The Let's Play poll will end probably around the end of the month. Not to pressed about it since I don't have my GameCube to start recording anyway.

Special thanks to PoeticFire who has joined the community: u/4684040/PoeticFire (Want to join? PM me.)


	4. Chapter 4

"Dr. Itami?" the boy gaped.

"Mayl, I have a small question for you. Do you think navis could have a soul?" the doctor asked the girl.

"Well, Megaman does."

"Megaman is Hub Hikari. He's technically not an "net navi", at least not by the actual definition of one."

"Well, I mean…um…"

"It's okay, child. I never knew either. Not until Roll anyway," she turned back to Dr. Hikari, "After the navi project was suspended, I didn't know what would happen. With Bass running free, the Net was no longer a safe place. But then you created Megaman, and I once again believed that navi's could be brought to the same level as humans.

"Roll's emotions program is tied into her core programming because that's her soul. Her being is a compilation of several years of coding. After the creation of your emotional programming, I knew that we as humanity were one step closer in digitizing ourselves. That's when the idea hit me. We had an independent navi. We had a navi who had a human soul. But we never had a navi that could respond to any emotional stimuli by itself. No navi ever really had their own soul. They were incorruptible that way.

"It was either they were able to react to it or not, but they first needed to see a human reaction to understand how to act. But even then they never understood hard concepts like love. The emotions we can't put into words. Sure they knew how to say it, but they never understood what it meant. I felt bad for them. Like you, I wanted navis to become more personalized. More human-like. So that's what I did. After several years of studying humanity and hours upon hours of coding, I had done it. I had created the first navi with a soul. I would call it artificial, but I'm afraid that she's just as genuine as any of us.

"Bass was a failure because he couldn't feel. He's still numb to the fact that his thirst for power is what will be the cause of his own deletion. Megaman was a step forward from that failure. However, we didn't create a navi. We gave a human the ability to transcend into the cyber world. Roll was the first navi to push the barrier of having a soul. That's why she reacts as human as she does. She's the first Soul Navi. Everything she feels is just how we would feel as humans. She as human as any of us, even Megaman."

"So, the incident with the emotion program those years ago…" Dr. Hikari started.

"Roll had acted on her own. She was knew that she was being made fun of. Those scientists were so cruel; I never saw her so hurt. It was like watching a small child burst into tears after they meet their first bully. All they can do is cry. No such words should have been uttered. But I had to keep my mouth shut. Roll had to use her own individuality and ability to realize that she wasn't someone you could just push around. Eventually, like every other human, she would snap.

"After I created her, I realized that those insensitive idiots would soon start to realize just how personal Roll would take things. They would realize how human she was. I took my only option. I searched for a caretaker for my navi. Then a business man approached me asking if I had a custom navi for him to give to his daughter. When I realized that the person asking me was Mr. Sakura, well you can put together my reasons for giving Roll up," the doctor turned back to the red haired girl, "And I couldn't think of a better person to give her to."

"So, what does being a Soul Navi mean?" a voice spoke. Roll had woken up. Her back was still turned away from Megaman. The blue navi looked towards the ground; he knew he deserved it.

"ROLL! You're okay!" Mayl cheered.

"Of course I am. I just had a meltdown. I needed some time to get over it." the pink navi said calmly. She would have smiled, but she still wasn't too happy with Mega. His words still stung her very core.

"Hearing is the last sense to go in humans. Perhaps that trait was translated into net navis. She calmed down once she could tell that the tension in the room had died down." The doctor then turned back to her creation.

"You are almost a mirror to Megaman. Except not completely. While you are a navi, you will react to things in the same exact way a human would, often times that will also include irrational thought. In a sense, you're an advanced form of the emotion program. Unlike most net navis, you can actually feel and understand emotions, much like Hub can.

"The full extent of your abilities is unknown even to me. I did not program you to be adaptable in the way that Megaman is; that being said, both of you carry souls, something that most navis would kill for if they understood the full implications of it. Whether or not something sprouts from this is yet to be foreseen. So, I guess the answer to your question Roll is this: I don't know."

"Okay." She was kind of disappointed that she couldn't get an answer, but a more pressing question came to her mind, "Can I still be Mayl's navi?"

"Of course, I see no objections do you, Dr. Hikari?"

"As far as I'm aware of, there is no Soul Navi Project in the SciLab record. You gave her willingly. Roll has no business being kept her in SciLab. Plus, something tells me she would just find a way to bust out and return back to Mayl even if I tried to keep her here."

The group laughed together as Mayl jacked Roll out. It wasn't going to be such a long walk home after all.

* * *

Once Roll's systems had been checked out, everyone headed home. Dr. Itami promised to send Roll emails and keep in touch with her.

"Wow, what a busy evening." Mayl said, lying back down on her bed.

"Yeah." Roll said quietly.

"Hey Roll?"

"Yeah Mayl?"

"You do know that you're still my best friend right?"

"Of course! You know you're my best friend, right?" Roll said, her eyes shining brightly.

"Yes, I do. And every day I'm thankful for it. Well good night Roll."

"Good night, Mayl."

* * *

After her NetOp fell asleep, Roll found herself unable to sleep. So, she decided to take a walk around ACDC area. But the minute she took the link from her PC to the net, she literally ran into someone.

"Sorry." Megaman said.

"Mega…" Roll bit her lip. Could she even talk to him? She was still somewhat hurt over what he said. Luckily, she didn't have to worry about being the first one to talk because he started the conversation.

"Look Roll, I…I came to say I'm sorry about earlier. I shouldn't have ever said those things. I just… I…" His eyes darted back to Roll's. She nodded telling him that he could continue, "I just thought I was alone. Everyone I've meet in the cyber world, every navi, I can tell, just goes along for the ride. They want to believe that they understand what they are feeling. But in reality, they don't. When I realized that, I told myself that I would never fall in love with a navi.

"And then I meet you. You were special. Even before Lan realized he had a crush on Mayl, I…I felt something towards you. I just never knew it was love until we moved back to ACDC. I really missed seeing your face and talking to you in the mornings when we lived in Cyber City. And then I realized that I had broken my promise. I had fallen in love with someone who I assumed would never be able to love me back the same way that I felt about you." Megaman looked away from Roll as a red blush made its way to his cheeks.

Roll walked up to the blue navi and gently touched his cheek, "You know even before I knew I had a soul, I had a feeling something wasn't right with me. When I realized that I had a crush on you, I tried to be a lot more forward than Mayl about my feelings towards you. But then I acted, I realized that no one really shared my sentiments about other navis. I was the only one who felt so…strongly about a significant other who wasn't a "relative" or operator. And even so, I just always knew how Mayl was feeling. It went more than just simple recognition, I actually understood her.

"Not only that, but I never had the same experiences as the other navis who were created. I never woke up until they were ready to put me through final testing. Dr. Itami didn't want to wake me up because she was afraid that me seeing her even once would taint me. She wanted my soul to be as innocent and pure as possible. When I first met Mayl, I didn't know that I was a secret SciLab scientist project. I just knew that Dr. Itami had created me. I never knew she made me with actual feelings. Not the synthesized junk, but actual feelings.

"I knew that my feelings towards you were too strong to be simulated. Sometimes, just the thought of you would make me stop what I was doing and just stand there like an idiot. That wasn't something I picked up from Mayl. She was never really the daydreamer, even when I did ever get her talking about Lan. Roll giggled a bit, "I guess I should thank you for angering me earlier. I was able to stress out that program much earlier than it should have because that kind of anger and hurt isn't something that can be programmed. Neither can love. So please believe me, Hub Hikari, when I say that I love you."

"Well," Megaman said as he wrapped his arms around Roll, "Believe me, Roll, when I say that I love you."

As they kissed, Roll realized something. She had been happy all along. Sometimes, people asked her how she could remain so upbeat. How she could be so different and yet the same as her operator? Many asked her why she needed to prove herself, especially to Mega. On some level, every navi wanted to prove their worthiness. But with Roll, it was different.

She had wanted to prove that she didn't need to be rescued all the time. That was why she sometimes pushed her luck and tried to stay out longer than she should. Sometimes, she really had been caught in a bind, but she never wanted to feel completely dependent on Mega to save the day. She knew what it was like to be scared and helpless; she had been kidnapped enough times to know how that felt. But somehow, she always remained positive. Mainly because she knew Megaman was there.

And that was the difference between her and the other navis. She was impulsive. She knew how to handle situations even when others didn't. She knew fear. She knew sadness. She knew love. Those weren't things that you just picked up from an operator. They weren't feelings you just learned to adopt. But yet she had them. She loved Mayl. She loved Megaman.

When that fake Roll had attack Mega in the Gospel server, she was actually insulted that he couldn't tell the difference between them. When he moved away, she felt the pain of having your best friend being so far away. She and Mayl actually talked to each other more than they ever had during those times.

Now the she thought about it, the more obvious the fact became: there just wasn't any way that she was just a navi. She was just too emotional and too…rambunctious, impulsive, creative? She didn't know the word for it, but Roll didn't particularly care. As they broke apart, they both just stared into each other eyes. Not surprisingly, it was Roll that broke the silence first.

"So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah, um…definitely. Well um, good night Roll."

"Night, Mega."

The blue navi turned to leave, but not before he was stopped by Roll, "Mega!"

"Yeah?"

"Love you."

"Love you too." The blue navi said back and smiled. Yep, today was a good day after all.

* * *

And it's done! The second installment to the series is done! Sorry Guys but prepare for an abnormally long author's note (aren't ya glad the story's over):

_PS, if you want to hear reasoning for things in this story/series go to points 1 and 2. If you just want to know what Project 7's real name is, just go to point 3. Thanks and have a nice day!_

1)

So before moving on, I guess I have some clean-up to do. In MMBN 3, Dr. Hikari states that he put an emotion simulation program into navis so that they can get along better with humans. However, this causes them to have a will of their own. Megaman, Hub Hikari, is the first and only navi to have a human soul and DNA. Ergo, there was almost no difference between him and a human being, except of course for the fact that he is now made of data and will live forever as long as he isn't deleted.

When you're talking with other navis in games, you can see their personality stick out. But in the end we know that that's just that, a program telling it how to react. If you really want to know why I made Roll so special...PM me and be ready for a long message (Gavzilla can attest to that). To me, throughout the series Roll has just never acted navi enough for my tastes; when it is revealed the Hub is Megaman in MMBN 1, did anyone else but me notice that Protoman and Roll were also in attendance (the classic series had these characters as brother and sister to Megaman). Anyway, if you really want to know my full reasoning, PM. I'd rather not bore you all with it here.

2)

Oh, and if anyone was wondering why Roll seems like a soft character. Please remember that I work solely out of the game series, which really never has Roll as a especially tough character, but more of a helpful side one. The anime (at least NT and Axess) made Roll to be more of a fighter did before dropping the navi on the head, along with Mayl (seriously, she was only called Maylu so that the dubs could have an easier time translating from Meiru, her Japanese name; I refuse to call her that!) to turn them both in love struck klutzes that do nothing more than annoy me because they used to be such good characters!

...Um...that said if you want my thoughts of them anime (seen **a lot** of it), you can PM me. Sorry if I sound a bit upset (not trying to force my opinion on anyone but that's just what I think-I really do love the anime and manga-which is what the anime should have been-(the anime was just a lot better when I was a kid, now that I'm older I see so many...screw ups.). It just annoys me when good characters are given such smack downs in order to make room for other characters I really could care less about (another reason I like the games and the manga, the character's roles never change randomly!)

3)

Now here's the moment you've all been waiting for, the unveiling of the series's true identity. The secret titles will be classified under the name **_Megaman Double Network_**. Yep, you read that correctly. A series emulating Battle Network with a few new things thrown in the mix. I don't have such computer skills like the ones create games like Megaman Battle Network: Chrono X (look it up on YouTube) yet, but I do posses writing skills and Gavzilla posses plot making skills! So, yeah...this is our combined effort and we hope you'll enjoy!

4)

If anyone is wondering why it sounds like I'm doing all the talking, it's because the documents and stories are uploaded through my profile. Gavilla sees these notes before I post them though (at least these types, not the thanks for xyzed for joining the community, etc.).

_Okay, now I'm done. Sorry, but I had a lot to say...this won't happen to often, I promise. If you actually read all these points, just a special bit of thanks from me. If you didn't...well thanks for reading anyway. Here's some music of a remix of the great track Be Somewhere performed by Buzy and the main theme of Stream (even though fanfiction with terminate the exe bit when I save it, pretend it's there). _

_watch?v=e_mkJcaNGQg (YouTube)_

Thanks for reading, reviewing, following, and favoriting. We hope to see you all and more again on Project 7...I mean **_Megaman Double Network: Dark_ _World_**. Did I mention that that is coming out today...I did? Did I mention that it will be out with a double feature (Prologue and Chapter 1) tonight at seven pm? Well...it is.


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